Night Games (The Lt. Hastings Mysteries)

by Collin Wilcox

  “Yes—” Watchfully, she nodded. “Yes. Okay.”

  “All right. Now, if we assume that you came home at one o’clock, then that would mean that more than two hours elapsed between the time you discovered the body and the time you phoned us. You’re asking me to believe that you—”

  “But I’ve already—already told you that—” Breaking off, she shook her head in a dull, dogged arc of hopeless protest. As suddenly as it had flared, the fire of her defiance had faded.

  “I know what you told me, Mrs. Haney. You told me that you had to comfort Maxine. But—” He shook his head. “But I can’t buy that. It’s simply not a normal reaction.”

  “Normal?” Frowning, she raised her eyes, searching his face. “Normal? I don’t understand what you—”

  “Your husband was dead. You’ve just told me that you didn’t know who did it. You’ve also told me that you were terrified. Isn’t that true?”

  She made no response, made no effort to answer, made no effort to look at him directly.

  “If your daughter was so frightened, and you were so frightened, the natural reaction would be to call the police immediately. For all you knew, the murderer could still have been in the house. If you were so concerned about your daughter, and I believe that you were, you’d’ve wanted to protect her. You’d’ve wanted to call us, get policemen here, as soon as possible. You’d’ve wanted to—” As he saw her lips moving, almost soundlessly, he broke off. Leaning forward to hear words that were hardly more than a whispered monotone, he heard her say:

  “Maxine wasn’t afraid of someone else, not someone from outside. That’s not what frightened her. It—it was me. She saw me, saw what I’d done. And she was—” She began slowly, helplessly shaking her head. Now her head was falling nervelessly forward, remaining bowed in an ageless posture of hope forsaken.

  Speaking softly, fearful of breaking the spell of despair that held her helpless, Hastings asked, “What did she see, Mrs. Haney? What did Maxine see? What did she hear?”

  “She—she must’ve heard him scream.”

  “When was that? When did he scream?”

  “It was—” Slowly, with infinite effort, she raised her head. Her eyes were hollow, haunted by the horror she was reliving. “It was when the—the knife first cut him. I can—I’ve heard it ever since, that first scream. I can’t get it out of my mind. Not for a minute. Not for a second.”

  “Where? Where did it happen? What part of the house?”

  “In my bedroom. I was in bed. I’d just gotten in bed, when he came in. He was drunk. Blind drunk. He came in, and got into my bed. He—he reached for me, started to—to handle me. And all the while he was telling me what he’d done to Amy Miller. He’d done it before, many times—gotten into my bed, and put his hands on me, and started to tell me that he was doing to me exactly what he’d done to some—some shopgirl he’d met in a bar, or even some hooker, some whore. And Amy Miller, too, that same night. He wanted to do to me what he did to Amy, and he wanted to tell me about it. And I—” She fell silent for a moment, staring down at her hands. The hands were limp now, no longer clenched—listless, defeated hands.

  Her voice, too, was drained of all vitality, utterly defeated, hardly audible as she continued:

  “I’d told him I had a knife—a kitchen knife. The last time he—he got into my bed, I told him I’d use the knife on him. I put it in the drawer of the nightstand. I’d just had the knives sharpened, and this one was razor sharp.”

  “Did he know it was there? In the drawer?”

  “No. At least, I didn’t tell him where it was. I just said I had a knife.”

  “Did he believe you had a knife?”

  “I—I don’t know. I think he did, though. I think it was a turn-on, for him.”

  “Did he tell you that he and Amy—” Hastings hesitated. “Did he tell you that he forced Amy to use the Moroccan dagger? As a prop?”

  In the same barely audible voice she said, “Yes, he told me about the dagger. That’s why I—I put it with the things, in the sack I took the—the knife I used to the kitchen, washed it off, put it with the other knives, in the kitchen. Then I—I got the dagger.”

  “Tell me how it happened, how he actually died. Exactly. From the beginning. In sequence.”

  “Well, when he—he got into bed, I rolled away from him, and got the knife. At first he thought I was going to—to come on to him, I think. With the knife, I mean. Like Amy did, I think. Because when I got out of bed, with the knife in my hand, he came toward me. He wasn’t afraid. He was turned on. I could see he was turned on.”

  “Was he on his feet?”

  She nodded. “Yes. Out of bed, and on his feet, and coming toward me. And before I knew it, before I realized what I’d done, there was blood on his chest. And then I remember that there was a—a kind of frozen moment, as if both of us couldn’t move. And then he came for me again. And I struck out at him again. I remember his face, after the second time I cut him. He was shocked, as if I’d done something wrong, at a party. And then, suddenly, he ran out into the hallway. And I—I realized that I was following him, running after him, slashing at him. I didn’t know that I was doing it, couldn’t control what I was doing.”

  “How many times did you cut him?”

  She shook her head. “I’ve no idea. All I know is that he was at the top of the stairs. I remember seeing Maxine come out of her room. And then James was falling—falling down the stairs. But I wasn’t even aware of it. All I could think of was Maxine. I wanted to protect her, get her back inside her room, so she couldn’t see him. But I couldn’t do it, couldn’t get her back inside. She began screaming, fighting me. I—I don’t know why. So I—I left her at the top of the stairs while I—I went down. He was lying on the hallway floor, bleeding. It—it was horrible, all the blood. And then, when I was standing over him, I heard a—a rattling, in his throat. And then I saw his—” She bit her lip, shook her head. “I saw his eyes turn to stone. Th—that’s how it seemed, as if his eyes had turned to stone. And I knew he was dead. I knew he’d died while I was there, looking down at him.”

  “And what time was that?” Hastings asked. His voice, like hers, was hushed.

  “It was—I think it was around one o’clock.”

  “What happened then?”

  “I took the knife to the kitchen. I put it in the sink, with water in it. Then I got the sack, and I collected some things from James’ study—the gun, and some of James’ mementos, and valuables. And then I—God—” Her face convulsed in a spasm of sudden agony. “Then I took the Moroccan dagger, and I held it by the handle, and I—I smeared blood on the blade. And I remember that, when I did it, I looked up and saw Maxine, staring down at me. That—that was the most horrible part, seeing her looking at me. I’ll never forget it.”

  “And then you ditched the loot. Close to the Millers’ house.”

  “Yes. But it wasn’t intentional. Or—” She lifted her shoulders, exhaustedly shrugging. “Or maybe it was. I don’t know, anymore.”

  “What happened then?”

  “I came back and I got a pail, and some towels, and some soap, and I cleaned up the blood on the stairs, and in my room. It—it seemed like it took forever, to clean it up. Then I got Maxine into her room, and calmed down. I told her what she had to do, what she had to say, to protect me. And then I called you. Called the police.”

  “And that’s the whole story?”

  As she nodded, her head once more sagged forward, bowed before him.

  In the lengthening silence, Hastings sat motionless, staring at the sheen of her tawny-gold hair. The hair was styled with a simple elegance that perfectly suited the image of a beautiful young widow, dressed for a funeral. He looked at her hands, lifeless on the desk. The fingernails were impeccably manicured. And, yes, she wore a plain gold wedding band, her only ring.

  Without coercion, voluntarily, she’d confessed to murder.

  A murder she couldn’t have committed.


  Hastings was conscious of a depression that was almost palpable, a weight so heavy on his chest that it forced him to draw a long, labored breath before he could begin speaking:

  “No, Mrs. Haney. That’s not the whole story. That’s more of the story, more of the truth than you’ve told me so far. But it’s not the whole story.”

  Slowly, the beautifully shaped head came up. Now her face had recovered some of its calm, most of its beauty. Only the eyes were without hope, deadened by an infinite dread. It was as if, having done her best, she was now resigned to the inevitable, and had therefore found a kind of peace that could only come when all hope was gone.

  “You didn’t kill him, Mrs. Haney. And neither did Amy Miller. It was—” He drew a last long, reluctant breath. “It was Maxine. Wasn’t it?”

  Sitting motionless, her empty eyes surrendered, she simply sat waiting for him to go on:

  “Your husband must’ve had a bad night, Friday. Maybe he struck out at the singles bar. We haven’t been able to get a handle on that. But we do know that he was drunk. Very drunk. And we also know that he and Amy Miller played their little game, whatever it was. She left about twelve-thirty, about an hour after your husband came home. After she left, he went upstairs. He was wearing his pajamas. He went down the hallway, from his room to Maxine’s room. I think he tried to—” He searched for a gentler word, failed to find one. “He tried to molest Maxine. He must’ve done it before. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have had a knife in her room, the knife from the kitchen. She slashed him, and he ran out of her room. She followed him, slashed him when he was running. She probably caught up with him at the top of the stairs. She slashed his neck, cut his carotid artery. He either ran down the stairs, or he fell. Anyhow, he bled on the way down. Then he died—bled to death at the foot of the stairs, in just a few minutes.

  “That probably happened about one o’clock, about a half-hour after Amy left. So for an hour and a half, approximately, Maxine was here, with the—” Once more he searched for a gentler word, once more failed. “With the body. You came home at two-twenty. You found the body, and you must’ve know, instantly, that Maxine did it. Otherwise, you couldn’t’ve done all you did, in the next fifty minutes.” Incredulously, he shook his head. “It’s remarkable, really. Incredible. You realized, immediately, what had to be done. And you did it. You wanted to make it look like murder committed in the course of a robbery. You realized that the time frame would be important—the time of death. By two-twenty, his skin would have been cold to the touch. So you’d have known that he’d been dead for some time, whether or not Maxine was able to tell you the time of death. You had to make us believe that you were here at the time of death. Because, all along, you were prepared to confess to the crime, if we didn’t believe your story of the burglar. That’s why you called Wade as soon as you could, and told him to say you left his place at twelve-thirty. Isn’t that so?”

  He watched her shudder, then mutely nod.

  “So you collected the loot, washed the knife, put blood on the dagger, everything just like you’ve just said. You washed up the blood on the stairs. You probably found some blood in Maxine’s room, too, and in the upstairs hallway.

  “You gave Maxine a pill, to keep her quiet, and you warned her to stay in her room. You didn’t want her talking to anyone, obviously. Then you called the police.”

  Her voice was no more than a hoarse whisper as she said, “Jeff told you, then. He told you I’d called him, Saturday morning.”

  “Not at first. He did his best. But there was another witness, in Wade’s building. Wade didn’t have a choice.”

  “If it hadn’t been for that witness—” She let it go unfinished.

  “There were the tapes, too. And other things. There’s no other way it made sense, that you’d want us to think you were here when it happened. You had to be protecting Maxine.”

  “What’ll happen to her? Are you—” As if the thought of the question caused her physical pain, she grimaced. “Are you going to—to take her away from me?”

  “No, Mrs. Haney, I’m not going to take her away from you. I don’t know what’ll happen to her, not really. That’s up to the D.A., and the judge. But it can’t be too bad. She’s only a child, and she was defending herself. It’s your husband. He was the—the monster.”

  “The monster—” She spoke in a dead voice. Her eyes, too, were dead.

  “Did you—” He hesitated, then asked the last, most difficult question: “Did you have any idea it was happening? Any idea at all?”

  As if she were summoning the last of her strength, she spoke sharply, furiously: “No. Christ, no.”

  “I had to ask. It—it’s part of what a policeman has to do. You can understand that.”

  All defiance spent, she once more bowed her head, waiting without hope for whatever came next. “I’ll help you all I can,” Hastings said. “You know I will.”

  “Yes. I know you will.”

  Suddenly he realized that there was nothing more to say, nothing that could help. Yet he must make one last effort:

  “He really was a monster. You can’t blame Maxine. Or yourself, either. You can’t blame yourself.”

  “I’ll always blame myself. Because I married him. Don’t you see that? Don’t you see how terrible it is, that I married him?”

  Three

  AS KATHERINE BRAKED THE Mercedes into line behind a pickup truck, her mother said, “It’s the rush hour. We forgot that.”

  “I didn’t forget. We’ve got plenty of time. It’s just a few miles to the airport from here. See—” Katherine pointed to an airliner flying low over the freeway, descending for a landing.

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to stay, Katherine? At least for the funeral?”

  “I’ve already told you how I feel, Mother. If I wasn’t afraid of the publicity, of the attention, I wouldn’t go to the funeral myself. I’d have him buried in a—a potter’s field. I’d see him put in an open pit with lime poured on him. I swear to God I would.”

  “Katherine!”

  She looked at her mother’s face, saw the predictably shocked expression, the prim disapproval. For sixty-odd years, her mother had succeeded in insulating herself from real life. During Katherine’s childhood, each bodily function had its proper-sounding code name. Voices were never raised, either in anger or ecstasy. The furniture was always fake—fake French, fake Italian, fake antique. Her mother, too, was a fake. Her hair was dyed, her face had been lifted twice, her buttocks had been tucked. Without makeup, her face was unrecognizable.

  “This is the man who assaulted my child. Mother. Raped her. Not once. Many times. Can’t you understand that? Can’t you understand how I hate him—how I hate myself, for bringing him into my home?”

  “You shouldn’t’ve divorced Richard. I told you that. You called me, to tell me about it. And I begged you not to do it. Do you remember?”

  Aware of a sudden flash of anger that she chose not to suppress, she flared: “Richard was playing around. You’ve always chosen to ignore that. But it’s true. He was playing around, and everyone knew it. Everyone.”

  “Well, Katherine—” Her mother shook her head, eloquently resigned.

  “Right now,” Katherine said, “I’m thinking about Maxine. That’s all I’m thinking about. That detective, Hastings, he knows what happened. He knows that Maxine killed James, and he knows why.” As she said it, even with her eyes on the road ahead, she was conscious of her mother’s wounded shudder. Aware of her own desire to strike out, deepen the wound, she said, “Maxine will never be the same again. Can’t you understand that?”

  “Well, certainly, I can—”

  “So don’t talk to me about who I should have married, and who I should’ve divorced, Mother. I’ve got a child. I owe everything to her, now. Everything. She’s my responsibility. Whatever happens to her, it’s my responsibility.”

  “Well, Katherine, that’s true, certainly. But you shouldn’t cut yourself off entirely, you know. Y
ou’ve got to think of the future. You’ve got to—”

  “Just like I was your responsibility. Mother.” As she said it, speaking very softly, tears filled her eyes. With the heel of her hand, as a child might, she rubbed roughly at her eyes. “That’s what it’s all about. That’s what I just realized, that it never ends. The responsibility never ends. It just goes on. Forever.”

  Her mother dug in her purse, produced a Kleenex. Saying: “Don’t use your hand, Katherine. Your mascara, it’s smearing. Use this. Blot. Don’t rub. Blot.”

  Wearing a simply embroidered white-on-white cotton robe, she stood before the large mirror above the washbasin. Conscious that she was performing a necessary ceremony, she cold-creamed her face and wiped away the cream. With her hair loose, letting time slip back in her consciousness, she stared at her reflection, unadorned.

  The truth shall make you free …

  It was a fragment from some long-forgotten poem, read in some long-forgotten textbook, committed to memory for some long-forgotten English assignment.

  Since Friday night—Saturday morning—when she’d found his body in the darkened hallway, then looked up the staircase to see her daughter crouched animal-quiet at the top of the stairs, she’d been possessed by the lies she’d told, tortured during every waking moment by the terrible certainty that every hostile question brought truth closer, as inevitable as death itself.

  Until, finally, Hastings had discovered the truth.

  And so released her.

  No longer compelled to lie, then to lie again to cover the first lie, she was now free.

  She looked at her wristwatch, lying on the tile counter. The time was nine-thirty. A half-hour ago, Maxine had gone to bed. As if he’d known what Katherine intended to do, David had checked the doors, checked the burglar alarm, then said that he, too, was going to bed.

  Tomorrow, she would ask David to stay with them, as long as he could. When he went into rehearsal, she would ask him to fly up on weekends.